HT Weekly Update: Week-ending Friday 16th August 2024

Friday 16th August 2024

This concise weekly HT Update is generally published every Friday afternoon.   It’s a simple opportunity for you to also feedback/ask questions via the link at the bottom of each Update.  Feedback received, where appropriate, will be responded to and published on Monday on the school website.   Please note there was no feedback gathered from the last HT update posted on Friday 28th June.

Key messages from this week  

Calendar:  Significant events next week;  on Monday through Thursday we’ll hold a series of special Student Voice Year Group Meetings (all year groups except S1 as they are not yet established, but will be soon). These meetings will allow us to prepare for the Midlothian Learner Conference on 5th September and to establish each year groups improvement priority.  On  Friday of next week we expect to have completed Senior Phase re-coursing requests.  Please visit our website to see the Whole School calendar for 2024/25, click here

Staffing:   On Monday of this week we welcomed a number of new staff to the school.  Hanna Dodds and Steven Turnbull as Teacher and Learning Assistant, respectively, within our Complex Needs Team/ The Pod.   Andrew Douglas as a Teacher in Computing. Claudia Mitchell  as a Teacher in English.  Liz Duncan and Kirsten Reade as Teachers in Mathematics. Matt Dryden as a Principal Teacher in Mathematics.   Catherine Kroeske as a Teacher in Biology. Raakshaana Gnanamurali as a Teacher in Business.  Nicole Newbiggin as a Teacher in History.  Gavin Fort is our Active Travel Officer and will join us on a full-time basis next week.   

Return to School:   We welcomed over 1600 young people into school on Wednesday of this week and held a series of Year Assemblies with students.  There were some bespoke messages, depending on the year group, but the consistent messages we shared with all groups are highlighted in the following slides, click here.

Child Protection and Safeguarding: A reminder that our designated Member of Staff for Child Protection is Mr Suzanne Yule. For further details please visit our website, click here

School Improvement Plan:  Please note that we have agreed the two main school improvement priorities for this session

1. Improve our curriculum with a focus on reimagining our Broad General Education to support progression and pathways to our Senior Phase.
2. Increasing student engagement and ownership of learning through improving the consistent use of effective formative assessment, collaborative learning and digital pedagogies.

I appreciate the above is in ‘teacher speak’.  Please be reassured that we’ve a bit more work to do on the full document and I will share additional details over the next few weeks. 

Senior Phase Awards Ceremony: Save the Date. Our Awards Ceremony will take place Wednesday 11th September and is designed to celebrate the achievements of our current S5 and S6, as well as the S6 who left in the summer term.  Our principal speaker/VIP is Gillian Hamilton, Chief Executive, Education Scotland.

School Photographers: Photographers will be in school on Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th August for whole school individual photos, and the S6 Year Group.  Schedule to follow. 

S6 School Captains:   Our School Captains have been active on social media over the Summer.  They have asked me to share two School Captain accounts you may wish to follow; Instagram click here and Tiktok click here

School Uniform:  Thank you for your support regarding our school dress code expectations.  These are clear on our website, click here.   We will work actively over the next few weeks to  strengthen our expectation that students are clearly identified as LHS students. This means they must either have the school tie and/or blazer and/or a top with the school badge on it.   This expectation helps us keep everyone safe.       

SQA:   As a school we are delighted with the exam results achieved by students when results were shared at the beginning of the month.  In broad terms, and in key measures our results have improved when compared to previous sessions and averages over time.  At our first Parent Council Meeting of the session in September I’ll share additional details.   

Head Teacher Role:  My ‘side hustle’ with Midlothian Council ended during the summer.  I have now returned to LHS on a full-time basis and have loved this first week back.  Maybe it’s my age or gender, but I’ve really enjoyed being able to just focus on our school.   Can I take this opportunity to thank Ms Mitchell (now HT at Balwearie HS) and Ms Struthers for sharing the role with me over the last two years.  They were and are phenomenal.       

If you have any feedback/questions relating to this update please submit them via the link below

Feedback here

Take Care

Campbell Hornell,  Head Teacher

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